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Jamie Walker, Middle East correspondent for The Australian, asked two critical questions in a recent article which discussed the involvement of two Australian citizens, Mohamed Elomar and Khaled Sharrouf, in Islamic State sex slavery. In 2014 Elomar purchased sex slaves, of whom four, all Yazidis, later escaped to a refugee camp where the ABC caught up with them andinterviewed them. Elomar had also boasted on Twitter that he had “1 of 7 Yehzidi slave girls for sale” at $2500 each.

Walker’s questions were:

“The uncomfortable questions for the Western world, including Australia, are why this debased appeal seems to be gaining traction with Islamic State’s target audience, which increasingly includes women, and why it’s not challenged more stridently in the public arena.”

The Islamic State has given its own answer to the first question. In the fourth edition of its magazine Dabiq it aggressively promoted sex slavery as an Islamic practice, arguing that the practice conforms to the teaching and example of Muhammad and his companions.

Does this argument have any wider appeal than among Islamic State recruits?

The reality is that many Muslim scholars have upheld the practice of enslaving captives of war. For example Islamic revivalist Abul A‘la Maududi wrote in his influential and widely disseminated tract Islam and Human Rights that for Muslims to enslave their captives was “a more humane and proper way of disposing of them” than Western approaches. Enslavement by Muslims, he argued, is preferable to the provisions of the Geneva Convention because of the value of this policy for fuelling the growth of Islam:

“The result of this humane policy was that most of the men who were captured on foreign battlefields and brought to the Muslim countries as slaves embraced Islam and their descendants produced great scholars, imams, jurists, commentators, statesmen and generals of the army.”

Islamic revivalist movements which look forward to the restoration of an Islamic Caliphate have repeatedly endorsed the practice of slavery in the name of their religious convictions. For example the (now banned) Muhajiroun movement in the UK announced in an article, “How does Islam Classify Lands?” that once a true Islamic State is established, no-one living in other nations (which it calls Dar al Harb ‘house of war’) will have a right to their life or their wealth:

“… hence a Muslim in such circumstances can then go into Dar Al Harb and take the wealth from the people unless there is a treaty with that state. If there is no treaty individual Muslims can even go to Dar Al Harb and take women to keep as slaves.”

It is a problem that the Qur’an itself endorses having sex with captive women (Sura 4:24). According to a secure tradition (hadith) attributed to one of Muhammad’s companions, Abu Sa‘id al-Khudri, this verse of the Qur’an was revealed to Muhammad at a time when Muslims had been ‘refraining’ from having sex with their married female captives. Verse 4:24 relieved them of this restraint by giving them permission to have sex with captive women even if the women were already married.

Abd-al-Hamid Siddiqui, a Fellow of the Islamic Research Academy of Karachi and the translator into English of the Sahih Muslim, commented on this tradition, saying: “When women are taken captive their previous marriages are automatically annulled. It should, however, be remembered that sexual intercourse with these women is lawful with certain conditions.”

There have been many cases reported across the centuries of Islamic armies using captive women for sex slavery, but is this any different from all wars? It is different in one important respect, that the mainstream of Islamic jurisprudence has justified and supported this practice on the basis of Islam’s canonical sources, including Muhammad’s own example and teaching. Islamic sex slavery is religiously sanctioned ‘guilt-free sex’.

This religious teaching is impacting our world today because the global Islamic community has been deeply affected by a grassroots religious revival, which seeks to purify Islam and restore it to its foundational principles, which include rules for war and the treatment of captives.

This leads us to Walker’s second question: why is the Islamic State’s ‘debased appeal’ not ‘challenged more stridently in the public arena’?

An obstacle which stands in the ways of such a challenge is that it would require a sober evaluation of the Islamic character of sex slavery. However even suggesting a link between Islam and ‘terrorism’ has become taboo to those who are afraid of being judged intolerant. Not only do some impose this taboo upon themselves, but they are quick to stigmatise those who do not partner with them in this ill-considered ‘tolerance’.

The taboo attached to making any link between Islamic State atrocities and the religion of Islam was apparent in comments by Greg Bearup on his interview with South Australian politician Cory Bernardi. During the course of the interview Senator Bernardi linked the Islamic State with Muhammad’s example, to which the interviewer wrote “Kaboom!”, and called the comment a ‘hand grenade’, ‘inflamatory’ and ‘divisive’.

While it is a hopeful sign that some Muslims, such as Anooshe Mushtaq, have been willing to explore the Islamic character of the Islamic State, non-Muslim opinion-makers should show more backbone by engaging with the issue at hand.

It is not a sign of tolerance when free people deliberately silence themselves about the ideological drivers of sex trafficking. The same can also be said of acts of terrorism, such as the world has witnessed over the past week in France, Tunisia and Kuwait.

Until societies are able and willing to have a frank and free discussion of the ideological drivers which motivate acts of terror and abuse, they should not expect to be able to develop effective strategies to contain or wind back such atrocities.

A state of denial is a state of defeat.

Mark Durie is the pastor of an Anglican church,
a Shillman-Ginsburg Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum,
and Founder of the Institute for Spiritual Awareness.

King John, pressured by English barons, reluctantly signs Magna Carta, the ‘Great Charter,’ on the Thames riverbank, Runnymede, June 15, 1215, as rendered in James Doyle’s ‘A Chronicle of England.’ PHOTO: MARY EVANS PICTURE LIBRARY/EVERETT COLLECTION

Americans, like Britons, have inherited their freedoms from past generations and should not look to any external agent for their perpetuation. The defense of liberty is your job and mine. It is up to us to keep intact the freedoms we inherited from our parents and to pass them on securely to our children.

Eight hundred years ago next month, on a reedy stretch of riverbank in southern England, the most important bargain in the history of the human race was struck. I realize that’s a big claim, but in this case, only superlatives will do. As Lord Denning, the most celebrated modern British jurist put it, Magna Carta was “the greatest constitutional document of all time, the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot.”

It was at Runnymede, on June 15, 1215, that the idea of the law standing above the government first took contractual form. King John accepted that he would no longer get to make the rules up as he went along. From that acceptance flowed, ultimately, all the rights and freedoms that we now take for granted: uncensored newspapers, security of property, equality before the law, habeas corpus, regular elections, sanctity of contract, jury trials.

Magna Carta is Latin for “Great Charter.” It was so named not because the men who drafted it foresaw its epochal power but because it was long. Yet, almost immediately, the document began to take on a political significance that justified the adjective in every sense.

The bishops and barons who had brought King John to the negotiating table understood that rights required an enforcement mechanism. The potency of a charter is not in its parchment but in the authority of its interpretation. The constitution of the U.S.S.R., to pluck an example more or less at random, promised all sorts of entitlements: free speech, free worship, free association. But as Soviet citizens learned, paper rights are worthless in the absence of mechanisms to hold rulers to account.

Magna Carta instituted a form of conciliar rule that was to develop directly into the Parliament that meets at Westminster today. As the great Victorian historian William Stubbs put it, “the whole constitutional history of England is little more than a commentary on Magna Carta.”

And not just England. Indeed, not even England in particular. Magna Carta has always been a bigger deal in the U.S. The meadow where the abominable King John put his royal seal to the parchment lies in my electoral district in the county of Surrey. It went unmarked until 1957, when a memorial stone was finally raised there—by the American Bar Association.

Only now, for the anniversary, is a British monument being erected at the place where freedom was born. After some frantic fundraising by me and a handful of local councilors, a large bronze statue of Queen Elizabeth II will gaze out across the slow, green waters of the Thames, marking 800 years of the Crown’s acceptance of the rule of law.

Eight hundred years is a long wait. We British have, by any measure, been slow to recognize what we have. Americans, by contrast, have always been keenly aware of the document, referring to it respectfully as the Magna Carta.

Why? Largely because of who the first Americans were. Magna Carta was reissued several times throughout the 14th and 15th centuries, as successive Parliaments asserted their prerogatives, but it receded from public consciousness under the Tudors, whose dynasty ended with the death of Elizabeth I in 1603.

In the early 17th century, members of Parliament revived Magna Carta as a weapon in their quarrels with the autocratic Stuart monarchs. Opposition to the Crown was led by the brilliant lawyer Edward Coke (pronounced Cook), who drafted the first Virginia Charter in 1606. Coke’s argument was that the king was sidelining Parliament, and so unbalancing the “ancient constitution” of which Magna Carta was the supreme expression.

United for the first time, the four surviving original Magna Carta manuscripts are prepared for display at the British Library, London, Feb. 1, 2015. PHOTO: UPPA/ZUMA PRESS

The early settlers arrived while these rows were at their height and carried the mania for Magna Carta to their new homes. As early as 1637, Maryland sought permission to incorporate Magna Carta into its basic law, and the first edition of the Great Charter was published on American soil in 1687 by William Penn, who explained that it was what made Englishmen unique: “In France, and other nations, the mere will of the Prince is Law, his word takes off any man’s head, imposeth taxes, or seizes any man’s estate, when, how and as often as he lists; But in England, each man hath a fixed Fundamental Right born with him, as to freedom of his person and property in his estate, which he cannot be deprived of, but either by his consent, or some crime, for which the law has imposed such a penalty or forfeiture.”

There was a divergence between English and American conceptions of Magna Carta. In the Old World, it was thought of, above all, as a guarantor of parliamentary supremacy; in the New World, it was already coming to be seen as something that stood above both Crown and Parliament. This difference was to have vast consequences in the 1770s.

The American Revolution is now remembered on both sides of the Atlantic as a national conflict—as, indeed, a “War of Independence.” But no one at the time thought of it that way—not, at any rate, until the French became involved in 1778. Loyalists and patriots alike saw it as a civil war within a single polity, a war that divided opinion every bit as much in Great Britain as in the colonies.

The American Revolutionaries weren’t rejecting their identity as Englishmen; they were asserting it. As they saw it, George III was violating the “ancient constitution” just as King John and the Stuarts had done. It was therefore not just their right but their duty to resist, in the words of the delegates to the first Continental Congress in 1774, “as Englishmen our ancestors in like cases have usually done.”

Nowhere, at this stage, do we find the slightest hint that the patriots were fighting for universal rights. On the contrary, they were very clear that they were fighting for the privileges bestowed on them by Magna Carta. The concept of “no taxation without representation” was not an abstract principle. It could be found, rather, in Article 12 of the Great Charter: “No scutage or aid is to be levied in our realm except by the common counsel of our realm.” In 1775, Massachusetts duly adopted as its state seal a patriot with a sword in one hand and a copy of Magna Carta in the other.

I recount these facts to make an important, if unfashionable, point. The rights we now take for granted—freedom of speech, religion, assembly and so on—are not the natural condition of an advanced society. They were developed overwhelmingly in the language in which you are reading these words.

When we call them universal rights, we are being polite. Suppose World War II or the Cold War had ended differently: There would have been nothing universal about them then. If they are universal rights today, it is because of a series of military victories by the English-speaking peoples.

Mr. Hannan is a British member of the European Parliament for the Conservative Party, a columnist for the Washington Examiner and the author of “Inventing Freedom: How the English-speaking Peoples Made the Modern World.”

A woman holds a placard during a march and rally in east London, December 13, 2013. They were participating in a rally organized by British Islamist Anjem Choudary condemning use of alcohol and promoting Shariah law.

In the wake of the Muhammad cartoon contest attack, the Charlie Hebdo massacre, tens of thousands of Muslims worldwide flocking to join ISIS, and the chronic oppression of women and minorities in Islamic nations, millions of people are taking a second look at Islam. Journalists, politicians, Muslims, and the public are realizing that something is fundamentally different about the religion. With every Islamic inspired beheading, bombing, burning, crucifixion, hanging, kidnapping, raping, shooting, stabbing, beating, lashing, amputation, and stoning, the difference becomes clearer.

If nations are serious about addressing the root cause of Islamic violence and oppression, they must stop deceiving themselves about the cause. The world must acknowledge the features of Islam that make followers more susceptible to acts of terror and tyranny and put out to pasture the discredited excuses of Islamic apologists.

Just like it would be absurd to say all governments are the same and equally benign, it is the height of irrationality to believe religions are the same and don’t differ in their dangerous teachings. While nearly all religions can teach violence and oppression, each religious text and founder is distinct. What they emphasize means the difference between extreme non-violence, as is the case with fundamentalists in Jainism, or extreme violence, as is the case with fundamentalists in Islam.

If the mainstream media persists on shielding Islam from criticism in the name of political correctness and religious sensitivities, the cycle of Islamic violence will continue ad infinitum. Only when we show moderate Muslims that we care more about saving their lives, improving their well being, and protecting their human rights than we care about possibly offending them will we be able to take our first steps towards ending the violence.

Three key aspects of Islam make it different and more dangerous than other religions: Sharia, Jihad, and Muhammad. Please feel free to reference and share this with the many apologists who still remain ignorant or in denial.

1. Sharia: Islamic law, called Sharia, is the only religious law that is incompatible with democracy and human rights. Wherever Sharia is embraced by an Islamic nation, oppression of women, religious minorities, gays, atheists, and ex-Muslims follows. Cruel and unusual punishments are employed and fear is used to control the population.

In Sharia, if you’re a Muslim who commits apostasy and renounces Islam you will be killed. Women have unequal rights in divorce, inheritance, freedom of movement, freedom of dress, and freedom of employment. Sharia supports killing or punishing gays, lesbians, bisexual, and transgender people. Sharia enforces blasphemy laws by stating those who criticize Islam, including the Quran or Muhammad, should be killed or severely punished.

The inhumane treatment of people in Sharia is why the Supreme Court of Turkey, a fledgling Islamic democracy, has effectively banned Sharia. It is also why the European Court of Human Rights ruled Sharia “incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy.”

According to Pew Research Center, a 2013 poll of Muslims worldwide revealed the majority believe Sharia to be revealed by Allah and not created by man. Since Sharia is the law of God, no manmade law can supersede it. Ones allegiance is to Sharia, not secular laws.

As a legal code, Sharia blurs the line between faith and government, making the two indistinguishable. Consequently, religion becomes the rule of law and there is no separation of church and State. This diverges from Christianity that says render unto God what is God’s and Caesar what is Caesar’s and from Jewish law, Halakha, which says Jews should follow the laws of the land they live in.

While some Islamic nations only embrace the civil law aspects of Sharia, for many Sharia is fully implemented and encompasses the personal, cultural, social, political, economic, and legal aspects of life. Though Sharia can be understood differently by the various schools of Islamic jurisprudence, it is often interpreted very strictly as it is in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, Brunei, and many others Islamic countries. It’s no coincidence that these countries have some of the most atrocious human rights records in the world.

The strongest evidence that Sharia makes Islam more oppressive than other religions is the 1990 Cairo Declaration of Human Rights (CDHRI). 45 Islamic nations have signed the Cairo Declaration that proclaims a number of human rights only to renege on them if they contradict Islamic Sharia. It is a devious way to give the appearance of caring about human rights when in reality it guts the historic 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) by declaring Sharia the only source for Muslim ‘human rights’.

To even call the CDHRI a declaration of ‘human rights’ is an affront to the principles of human rights. The Cairo Declaration is an attempt by the majority of Islamic nations to enshrine religious inequality and oppression for eternity and create an Orwellian parallel version of ‘human rights’ to compete with the UDHR. They believe it is a Muslims ‘human right’ to oppress and be oppressed, to carry out cruel and unusual punishments, and to treat women and non-Muslims as inferior.

The Cairo Declaration offers no protections for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, or equal rights. For instance, Article 2, section D of the CDHRI states “Safety from bodily harm is a guaranteed right. It is the duty of the state to safeguard it, and it is prohibited to breach it without a Sharia-prescribed reason.”(Emphasis added) Endless ‘rights’ are no sooner given then they are taken away by declaring that Sharia supersedes all laws guaranteeing human rights.

In case there was any misunderstanding the signers of the declaration included Article 24 that states “All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari’ah.” If any rights guaranteed in the Cairo Declaration contradict the Sharia, the Sharia always wins. If any of the rights of the Declaration are not found in the Sharia, then they are not ‘guaranteed.’ Islamic nations would have saved a lot of time had they simply called it the ‘Cairo Declaration of Sharia Over Human Rights’.

No other nations on earth have set up a parallel version of ‘human rights’ to undermine the UDHR in the name of religion. By doing so, Islamic countries have declared Islamic Sharia to be incompatible with human rights and Islam very different than other religions. I unequivocally agree with them.

2. Jihad: Islam is the only major religion to have violent resistance, or violent Jihad, embedded into its sacred scriptures and endorsed by the founder. While Jihad can mean to struggle to improve oneself, Jihad meaning ‘violent struggle’ is prevalent in the Quran, Hadith, Islamic history, and modern day Islam. One need only turn on the evening news to see Jihad in action.

No matter where you go in the world, no matter their economic or educational background, race, age, gender, profession, or country of origin you will find a minority of Muslims turning to violent jihad. No matter where you go in the world, no matter their economic or educational background, race, age, gender, profession, or country of origin you will never find any Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Mormon, or humanist followers committing violent Jihad. Violent Jihad is unique to Islam.

Since no other religion has the doctrine of Jihad, we should expect more Muslims to succumb to violence then followers of other faiths. That is exactly what is happening. What would truly be baffling and in need of an explanation is if Muslims weren’t turning to violent Jihad.

Here are but 3 of the many quotes in the Quran and Hadith supporting Jihad. If you read them in context as I suggest you do, it will only reinforce their support of violent jihad.

“Fight those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth among the people of the Scripture until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” Quran 9:029

“Our Prophet ordered us to fight you till you worship Allah alone or pay us the Jizyah tribute tax in submission. Our Prophet has informed us that our Lord says: ‘Whoever amongst us is killed as a syahid shall go to paradise to lead such a luxurious life as he has never seen, and whoever survives shall become your master.” Sahih Bukhari 4:53:386

“A single endeavor of fighting in Allah’s Cause is better than the world and whatever is in it.” Sahih Bukhari 4:52:50
Astonishingly, even with Islamic terrorists referring to these passages as their inspiration for Jihad and the Quran and Muhammad’s endorsement of Jihad, Islamic apologists still deny that Islam has anything to do with terrorism or that Islam is different than other religions. It’s like trying to talk to someone with their head buried in blood soaked sand.

While the majority of Muslims do not support Jihad, a sizeable minority does. According to a 2013 Pew Poll of Muslims worldwide, 13% support Al Qaeda’s Jihad. When you take into account that there are 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide, 13% comes to 208 million Muslims scattered around the globe supporting terrorism. There are 15 times more Muslim Al Qaeda supporters than the entire world Jewish population of 13.9 million.

The goal of Jihad is simple: to spread Islam until it conquers and rules the world and all non-Muslims submit to Islamic rule. Non-Muslims and Muslims deemed apostates would be killed, asked to convert, or forced to pay the Jizyah. They will then implement a version of oppressive Sharia law on the conquered lands.

Jihad will not stop next year, next decade, or next century unless there is a worldwide concerted effort to wipe the legitimacy of Jihad from Islamic doctrines.

3. Muhammad: The prophet Muhammad is the only founder of a major religion to also be a warrior and military leader. This crucial distinction between him and founders of other major religions should be significant for obvious reasons. From the beginning the sacred and profound of Islam were bound to be entangled with the violent and cruel.

Like other military leaders of his day, Muhammad committed many ruthless acts. Islamic biographers reveal that he warred with neighboring tribes, ordered assassinations, killed prisoners of war, exploited women and children, gave his blessing to violent religious Jihad, and made people slaves. Many Muslims are only taught Muhammad’s merciful deeds and still remain shockingly ignorant or in denial of his complete life history.

For Muslims who do know and accept his life story, it can be a strong motivation to cause violence. Islam teaches Muslims that Muhammad is the ultimate role model for and they are encouraged to follow in his footsteps. As the supposed last prophet chosen by God his behavior and character are revered as holy and he is an example to be emulated.

It should come as no surprise that Muhammad’s support for violent acts is a significant source and inspiration for violence committed in Islam’s name. Radical Muslims, including ISIS, are simply doing what their prophet encouraged them to do or did himself. By behaving like Muhammad, Jihadi’s believe their violent acts will bring them closer to God, closer to the prophet, and make them more worthy of entrance into paradise.

If Muhammad had preached non-violence, to love non-Muslims, or to live in peace, then we’d have tens of thousands of Muslims around the world acting like Jesus. Because Muhammad was the antithesis of Jesus, we have tens of thousands of Muslims acting like warriors. This makes Islam, and Muhammad, much more dangerous than other religions.

To live in peace, Muslims and non-Muslims must denounce the violent and hateful parts of Muhammad’s life. They must admit that Muhammad was flawed and that his violent actions and sayings were not holy and contradict the Islamic precepts of mercy and forgiveness.

Ultimately, all Muslims, Imams, Islamic Scholars and Universities, Islamic political leaders, Islamic culture, Western political leaders, and Western culture must renounce Sharia, Jihad, and the violent aspects of Muhammad’s life. The alternative is 1400 more years or murder, mayhem, and broken lives.

The scene outside New York University this morning is of a celebratory and sarcastic nature. A “massive party” is taking place to bring awareness to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s recent milestone of 1,000 hangings in the just the past 18 months.

Your party host, David Keyes, Executive Director of NYC-based Advancing Human Rights (AHR), a nonprofit human rights advocacy group, has set up the carnival atmosphere this morning to coincide with Iranian Foreign Minister M. Javad Zarif’s speech this morning at NYU.

“We’ll be symbolically renaming the cross-streets where the foreign minister will speak, ‘Majid Tavakoli Plaza’ in honor of the jailed Iranian student leader and ‘Jason Rezaian Plaza’ in honor of the jailed Washington Post writer,” Keyes explained in an email.

Adding to the mocking nature of the protest, AHR has festooned the area with balloons and Iranian flags. An ice cream truck, live music, and signs that read “Free political prisoners! Free ice cream!” and “Hang in there!” are part of the dark humor.

“If anyone deserves to be humiliated and punked, it is a regime that hangs gays, murders poets and tortures bloggers,” said Keyes. “Satire is a profoundly powerful tool against dictators as we saw with North Korea’s hysterical response to The Interview. Tyrants silence and jail satirists because they fear them.”

A satirical invitation was sent to U.N. Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, inviting him to join the party.

H.E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon,

Secretary-General

United Nations

New York

Excellency,

Iran has a rich cultural, national and religious heritage. Iranians also enjoy celebrating major milestones in our unique history. It is my privilege, therefore, to invite you to an exciting event marking a historic achievement. This [Wednesday], April 29, 2015, join us in celebrating 1,000 hangings in Iran (in the past year and a half alone)!

All Iranians have the right to be hanged, whether you are a poet that blasphemed or merely gay. There is no place for discrimination in our policy to hang the enemies of god. Men, women and children have all been jailed, tortured and asphyxiated at the end of a noose for their opinions and sexual identities.

We hope you will join our staff to mark this exciting milestone in Iranian history. The celebrations will be held from 9:15 to 10 a.m. at 60 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012. Plenty of ice cream and fun for the whole family.

This morning’s event is not the first time Mr. Keyes has confronted the Iranian foreign minister.

An October, 2013 encounter revealed that Mr. Zarif uses Facebook even though his government bans it. The Islamic Republic’s minister also claimed not to know who Iranian activist Majid Tavakoli was, when asked about his 2009 arrest for protesting Iran’s disputed presidential election.

This led to a social media firestorm that resulted in Tavakoli being released.

This petition urges the leaders of the Western and non-Muslim World and the UN to examine whether Islam is in fact antithetical to Human Rights law, and incites violence towards non-Muslims and apostates, incites hatred and the rejection of Civil Law. We the undersigned urge our Political Leaders and the United Nations Human Rights Council to examine whether Islam is an ideology rather than a religion and as such should be banned as a belief system in the non-Muslim world.

The Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights ruled in February 2003 that Islamic Sharia law is “incompatible with the fundamental principles of democracy.” The court said that a legal system based on Sharia law “would diverge from the European Convention on Human Rights, particularly with regard to the rules on the status of women, and its intervention in all spheres of private and public life in accordance with religious precepts.”

Further, the European Court of Human Rights determined on July 31, 2001, that “the institution of Sharia law and a theocratic regime, were incompatible with the requirements of a democratic society.”

Sharia law is Islam. Islamic Theocratic regimes are founded upon Islam. In all its manifestations, whether in violent responses to ‘blasphemy’ such as the Charlie Hebdo attacks, or in forcing women to cover their faces, child marriage, beheadings or intolerance towards non-Muslims, Islam, Muslim nations, leaders and Islamic organisations are continuously flouting Human Rights laws.

This is evidenced today in Saudi Arabia‘s theocratic (religious) legal system enforcing regular beheadings, banning women from driving and the persecution of minorities, or the much better known barbarism of Isis which takes slaves of women and children and is currently engaged in the extermination of the Yazidi people and conquest of land in Iraq and Syria.

Muslim groups Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab in Kenya and Somalia terrorise and kill thousands. Iran regularly hangs and whips dissenters, is close to having a nuclear weapon and has stated its intention to destroy Israel. Jews have been expelled from Muslim nations and Christians continue to be persecuted and killed there for their religious belief.

Closer to home, Hizbut Tahir works to establish a global Caliphate and rejects UK law openly. ‘Islamophobia’ is shouted each time Islam causes another horror, in order to crush dissent and debate – regardless of the fact that Islam is responsible for oppression and slaughter, most recently in Paris – NOT non-Muslims.

We constantly hear Muslim voices condemning non-Muslim actions (such as publishing cartoons) – yet these are as nothing compared to the killing and oppression BY Muslims.

It is now incumbent on our political leaders and the UN to listen to the voices of non-Muslims and to ex-Muslim testimony in order to finally examine in a dispassionate manner Islam and its relationship to the non-Islamic world. Specifically we ask that a major enquiry is set up to examine whether or not Islam will pose a threat to the freedoms and Human Rights which we have fought oppression to guard and which we hold so dear in the non-Muslim world.

There are now many Muslim groups wanting to establish Sharia law in the West and to make Muslim lands of our nations. The existent rulings by Strasbourg that there no place for Sharia law in a democracy must be upheld everywhere and it means too that non-Muslim nations should stop allowing the voices of Islam to demand special treatment or the silencing of dissent. Ultimately it is the purpose of this petition to ask our leaders to honestly examine whether Islam is compatible with Human Rights in non-Muslim nations. If it is found not to be it should be banned just as Nazism is banned.

People like Ayaan Hirsi-Ali and Serkan Engin have left Islam and as such are able to see it clearly. They compare it to a cult or to Nazism – NOT to a religion. Nazism is rightly condemned today, yet Islam has an even worse track record historically. Muhammad was a warlord who himself killed many people and persuaded his followers to kill any who didn’t believe in his new religion.

This tendency to kill non-believers is very evident in the history of Islam right through to the present day. Islam was started by Muhammad who was not peaceful nor tolerant – he had Jews and Christians killed. The fact that Iran has a stated aim to ‘destroy Israel’, and the rise of Isis and Islamic terrorist attacks on the West shows clearly that Islam uses the cover and protection of religious freedom to promote its hate-filled, intolerant and violent ideology.

If followers of the cult of Scientology were to begin beheading people and violently taking over large parts of the world there would be immediate calls to ban it. Yet there is a popular myth which our leaders and media maintain, that Islam is a religion of the same caliber as Judaism or Christianity. In fact whilst terrible things were done in the name of these religions – the Judeo-Christian faith model is based on strongly moral teaching. Jesus was so peaceful he allowed himself to be killed and abused rather than exhort his followers to kill for him. Islam is based on the example of a violent warlord who did exhort violence as the solution to non-believers.

It is Islam which leads to Islamism. The roots of the violence and persecution of other religions which we see both today, and in the history of the belief, are there plainly in the Koran and especially the Hadith or life of Muhammad.

Read the following from Bukhari, The Book of Jihad, and consider whether Isis and Boko Haram are in fact much more likely to be simply Muslims rather than radical Muslims – for they DO follow the life of their prophet:

‘He (The Prophet) had their hands and feet cut off. Then he ordered that nails should be heated and passed over their eyes, and they were left in the rocky land of Medina. They asked for water, but none provided them with water till they died.’ [3018]

Please sign this petition now, and share it widely, to ask our world leaders to stop calling Islam the ‘Religion of Peace’ when it is no such thing – rather it has a history of violence and conquest of non-believers which has not abated to this day.

Humanity itself and the freedom of Western civilisation is at threat from this fastest growing belief system which incites hatred, violence and oppression, intolerance and fear wherever it spreads.

Islam must be examined as a cult or belief-system which has always and is now a threat to Human peace and civilisation – NOT as a religion. If Sharia and Theocratic Regimes are disallowed under the Human Rights act then why is Islam given the respect of any other religion? Islam is the foundation of Sharia and Islamic Theocracies.

There is no place for such a belief system within the non-Muslim world. Please watch Ayaah Hirsi Ali’s account of Islam and read more on how Islam breaches Human Rights Law here.

Thank you for your time and please help us in this struggle to retain our basic freedoms, in the face of this violent oppressor which passes for a ‘religion’ when it is rather no more than a cult.

We would not allow Nazism to flourish again unchecked in our lands – we should therefore not allow Islam to place more and more checks on our behaviour until all we hold dear has been destroyed.

Iraqi Shi’ite fighters pose with an Islamic State flag which they pulled down on the front line in Jalawla, Diyala province, November 23, 2014.CREDIT: REUTERS/STRINGER/FILES

BY STEPHANIE NEBEHAY, GENEVAWed Feb 4, 2015:

(Reuters) – Islamic State militants are selling abducted Iraqi children at markets as sex slaves, and killing other youth, including by crucifixion or burying them alive, a United Nations watchdog said on Wednesday.

Iraqi boys aged under 18 are increasingly being used by the militant group as suicide bombers, bomb makers, informants or human shields to protect facilities against U.S.-led air strikes, the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child said.

“We are really deeply concerned at torture and murder of those children, especially those belonging to minorities, but not only from minorities,” committee expert Renate Winter told a news briefing. “The scope of the problem is huge.”

Children from the Yazidi sect or Christian communities, but also Shi’ites and Sunnis, have been victims, she said.

“We have had reports of children, especially children who are mentally challenged, who have been used as suicide bombers, most probably without them even understanding,” Winter told Reuters. “There was a video placed (online) that showed children at a very young age, approximately eight years of age and younger, to be trained already to become child soldiers.”

Islamic State is a breakaway al Qaeda group that declared an Islamic caliphate across parts of Syria and Iraq last summer. It has killed thousands and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes, in what the United Nations has called a reign of terror.

On Tuesday, the group, which is also known as ISIL, released a video showing a captured Jordanian pilot being burned alive.

The U.N. body, which reviewed Iraq’s record for the first time since 1998, denounced “the systematic killing of children belonging to religious and ethnic minorities by the so-called ISIL, including several cases of mass executions of boys, as well as reports of beheadings, crucifixions of children and burying children alive”.

A large number of children have been killed or badly wounded during air strikes or shelling by Iraqi security forces, while others had died of “dehydration, starvation and heat”, it said.

ISIL has committed “systematic sexual violence”, including “the abduction and sexual enslavement of children”, it said.

“Children of minorities have been captured in many places… sold in the market place with tags, price tags on them, they have been sold as slaves,” Winter said, giving no details.

The 18 independent experts who worked on the report called on Iraqi authorities to take all necessary measures to “rescue children” under the control of Islamic State and to prosecute perpetrators of crimes.

“There is a duty of a state to protect all its children. The point is just how are they going to do that in such a situation?”, Winter said.

Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service operates a satellite campus in an oppressive Middle Eastern dictatorship.

Funded by oil money and corrupt sheikhs, Georgetown University effectively condones and promotes the human rights abuses of our host country. Why does no one talk about this?

Georgetown is not alone; we’re one of a growing number of American universities to give a free pass to our Middle Eastern donors. NYU Abu Dhabi, anyone? Cornell in Doha? It’s no mystery — when wealthy princes offer you hundreds of millions of dollars to build a campus in their country, it’s hard to say no.

But we should still be honest with ourselves about the motives and consequences of that decision. As Georgetown students, as members of a Jesuit community and as global citizens, examining the status quo is not just important, it’s our moral obligation.

Where to begin? Freedom House has consistently ranked Qatar “not free” for over 20 years. Consensual gay sex is a crime in Qatar, punishable by up to five years in prison, but marital rape is fully legal.

Article 134 of Qatar’s penal code mandates prison time for anyone who is convicted of criticizing the emir, and a few months ago, according to Amnesty International, the Cabinet approved a draft of a cybercrimes law that would grant the government extensive powers “to punish anyone who posts or shares content that officials consider harmful to Qatar’s social values or national interests.”

Israel has even alleged that Qatar is tied financially to Hamas, the militant group in the Gaza Strip that was involved a month-long war with Israel this summer.

And perhaps most alarmingly, Qatar uses forced labor and travel restrictions to limit the rights of migrant workers, who make up 90 percent of its population.

“Workers typically pay exorbitant recruitment fees and employers regularly take control of their passports when they arrive in Qatar,” explains Human Rights Watch in a description of the kafala system, which ties a migrant worker’s citizenship to his or her employer. “Migrant workers commonly complain that employers fail to pay their wages on time if at all, but are barred from changing jobs without their sponsoring employer’s consent.” Despite making up 99 percent of the private sector workforce in

Qatar, migrant workers are also prohibited from unionizing or striking.

If a worker decides to leave the country to escape these poor working conditions, he can’t do so without the explicit consent of his employer. This is all part of a clear pattern of rights denial for migrant workers, many of whom are ethnic or religious minorities.

Qatar is certainly more progressive than many of its neighbors, but that doesn’t say much in a neighborhood where women can’t drive and gays are stoned to death. Who is to say that Georgetown’s SFS-Q campus wasn’t built by migrant workers chained by the kafala system? What about protections for SFS-Q’s gay and lesbian students? Female students? Jewish students? What about student media at SFS-Q, which lacks freedom of the press? To ignore these questions in the face of all reason and reality is either negligent, deceptive or both.

These questions must be asked, if not to find answers then at least to start a dialogue around our campus in Qatar and the application of Georgetown’s stated principles that promote equity. It was the Jesuits who coined the term “social justice,” it’s the Jesuits who stress values in our daily lives and it’s now our responsibility as a Jesuit university to examine those values in the context of our own institution. We cannot continue to fulfill our mission while ignoring egregious human rights violations in our own backyard.

Speak up, Georgetown. It’s time to publicly acknowledge the harsh reality of our partnership with Qatar.

Ari Goldstein is a freshman in the College.

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This student is taking a lot of heat for speaking the truth. Read the comments!

The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights was a document put together in 1990 after the United Nations had come out with its Universal Human Rights. The Muslims looked at it and said: “We don’t like universal human rights. We will put together an Islamic document about human rights.”

We can learn something very interesting about Islam and about us as Kafirs from this document. It is a 2 to 3 page document that is based on the Sharia. It has some lofty language, which at first seems to be wonderful, until you look at it really closely. For instance, it starts off by saying that all human beings form one family whose members are united by their subordination to Allah. What? Human beings are those who submit to Allah and that’s our first insight into the true nature of this doctrine. What about those who do not submit to Allah?

It goes ahead to say all men are equal in terms of basic human dignity. Well, not really because in the Sharia, there are Kafirs and believers and Kafirs are not treated equally under the Sharia.

The Cairo Declaration states that the right to life is guaranteed to every human being. It is forbidden to take away a life except for a Sharia prescribed reason. What might those be? Well there’s the usual ones, such as the penalty for murder. But then there are other reasons to take a life, which I personally don’t like. For instance, it’s allowed to take the life of a Kafir, if it is in jihad. That is wrong and doesn’t really give me a lot of rights. Another reason that you can kill somebody is, buried deep in the back of the Sharia text, is that both parents and grandparents shall not be considered guilty if they kill one of their children. So in other words, honor killings are built into the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights.

It states that men and women have the right to marriage and no restrictions stemming from race color or nationality. What are we missing? Yes, religion! Because you see there are many prohibitions on Muslims. A Muslim woman is not supposed to marry a Kafir male, but a Kafir woman can marry an Islamic male, a Muslim male. Why? The children have to be raised as Muslims.

The Cairo Declaration says that a woman is equal to a man in human dignity. Right. But included in the Sharia are prescriptions on how a woman is to be beaten and the appropriate ways to do this. So much for equality.

It say that everyone shall have the right to enjoy their fruits of his scientific, literary, or artistic work. Well, not really. Because you see, any art which portrays Mohammed or Islam in a bad way is strictly forbidden.

Then we have one that sounds great. All individuals are equal before the law. But individuals are not equal under the Sharia. A Kafir cannot testify in a Sharia court against a Muslim. That’s the equality under the Sharia.

The Cairo declaration says that everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely. Try going to Pakistan and say something about Mohammed Muslims don’t like and you’ll see how much right you have to freely express your opinion. You’ll be dead.

The Cairo Declaration ends with a simple statement. All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this declaration are subject to the Sharia. It is a case where the little print takes away everything that the big print promises. Because there aren’t any rights and freedoms inside of the Sharia for the Kafir. Human rights are only for Muslims. Kafirs don’t have any rights because Kafirs are not humans. So much for the declaration of human rights under Islam.

He said it. Will Muslim spokesmen in the West denounce Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak as an Islamophobe? Will they say that he is motivated by hatred and bigotry, and a racist desire to defame Islam and Muslims? Will they denounce him as ignorant of Islam? No? They won’t do any of those things? But they do them when a non-Muslim in the West says something similar. Why the difference?

Everyone who labors in the “Islamophobia” business has to contend with the same issue: a lack of effectiveness in the wider world. As has often been pointed out, this website and others like it constitute for the most part an echo chamber. We are addressing an audience that is already familiar with the issues surrounding Islamization and largely agrees with what we say.

There are intramural battles, to be sure — some of them quite fierce. Does the “moderate” Muslim exist? Can the advance of Islam be stopped without first addressing the issue of globalist socialism? Does the welfare state have to collapse before the cultural enrichment of the West can be turned back? The intensity of the arguments over these questions masks the fact that most of the people engaged in the debate already agree with most of what the Counterjihad stands for.

How do we force the same issues into the attention span of the average uninformed low-information voter? This is the essential problem.

Dr. Bill Warner of the Center for the Study of Political Islam has developed his own ingenious approach to the same problem. He employs the methods of the Left — simplified emotion-based arguments targeting the ill-informed — to shame previously uninvolved people into paying attention to the worldwide persecution of religious minorities by Islam. He uses the same “lefty-speak” as his opponents to occupy the moral high ground in the discussion.

In the following video Dr. Warner provides some specific advice and examples of his approach:

A couple of days ago we mentioned the Religious Communicators Council (RCC) meeting in Nashville later this week. Bill Warner and other activists from Voices for the Voiceless are planning a silent demonstration at the event:

RCC is Training Writers to Deny the Persecution of Christians

We will hold a silent demonstration on Saturday, April 5, 2014 at 11:15 am to protest the Religious Communicators Council (RCC) meeting in Nashville. It will besilent to demonstrate their lack of reporting persecution of Christians. We will invite the media and issue a press release.

The protest will be held rain or shine. Further details about how to park, signs, etc. are posted at voices4voiceless.org

Why We Are Demonstrating

On April 3-5 the RCC will hold a national convention at The Inn at Opryland, 2401 Music Valley Drive, Nashville, TN 37214

There is not ONE RCC speaker who will deal with the persecution of Christians. They support the oppressors, and deny the victims.

Why This is so Important

Those who attend the RCC convention are the major voices in the suppression of the news about the murder of religious minorities. They have no opposition and dominate the media. The RCC shapes the agenda and message that religious communicators use to deny the suffering of the victims, their brothers and sisters.

We need a show of force. The Muslim Brotherhood has stated that they’ve made their greatest gains in the apologist pulpits. Now is the time to resist their dominance.

You Are Not Powerless — What You Can Do

All we ask is that YOU SHOW UP and stand together in silent protest. If you can take part, send us an email to: info@voices4voiceless.org

Spread the word on social media, email, friends. Be sure to contact us at info@voices4voiceless.org and let us know you will attend. We need help with signs and other details.

Canada also demanded that Pakistan address mistreatment of minorities such as Hindus, Christians and Ahmadis

BY TAHIR GORA:

The Pakistani Consul-General in Toronto, Muhammad Nafees Zakaria, was not happy when he had to listen to Canadian Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Chris Alexander. The Minister’s message was clear: Pakistan must address its human rights violations and mistreatment of minorities such as Hindus, Christians and Ahmadis.

Alexander was speaking to the International Christian Voice’s event in memory of Pakistani parliamentarian Shahbaz Bhatti, who was assassinated by the Taliban three years ago for demanding an end to the country’s blasphemy law. The blasphemy law is like a black sword hanging over the heads of Pakistan’s minorities. There is even a shameful declaration form for Ahmadi Muslims that declares them to be non-Muslims at the Consul-General’s Toronto office.

Alexander mentioned the Pakistani state authorities’ bleak record on free press. He talked about a journalist, Saleem Shahzad, who was allegedly killed by the notorious intelligence agencies.

Pakistani Consul-General Zakaria did not say a single word about repealing the blasphemy law. He didn’t even say he’d deliver the message to the Pakistani government. He couldn’t even bring himself to tell Canadian parliamentarians that he’d pass on their concerns to Islamabad, even if he doesn’t agree with Alexander.

Instead, Zakaria blamed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan for the problem of the Taliban in Pakistan. He framed the Taliban as a product of the covert U.S. effort against the Soviets, leaving Pakistan innocent and noble. This is a common excuse used by the Pakistani establishment that doesn’t want to take responsibility for their involvement in creating the problem of the Taliban and other extremists.

Ayatollah Boroujerdi’s condition has reportedly worsened as of January 28, 2014, when he suffered severe body tremors and was motionless for hours in his cell. The authorities still refuse to transfer him to a medical facility and are denying him the most basic medical care. We ask for intervention to save his life.

Ayatollah Hossein-Kazamani Boroujerdi, a senior member of the Shiite Muslim clergy, is presently serving the eighth year of an 11-year sentence handed down to him by the Islamic Republic’s courts for advocating the separation of state and religion inside Iran. He has also spoken against political Islam and its leaders. As a result, during his time in prison, he has been exposed to torture especially reserved for the Islamic Republic’s dissident clergy and political prisoners. Boroujerdi has endured the rape of his spouse in front of other family members. He has been purposely exposed to toxic chemical agents while kept in a small solitary cell. As a result, he now suffers permanent neurological damage, further aggravated by group beatings. Urgent medical attention has been systematically withheld for his long list of ailments, which are mostly a direct result of years of torture and malnutrition.

Ayatollah Hossein-Kazamani Boroujerdi, in better times (left) and in his prison cell (right).

On September 29, 2013, for example, Ayatollah Boroujerdi suffered a heart attack in prison for which he was refused medical intervention. His condition has reportedly worsened as of January 28, 2014, when he had severe body tremors and was motionless for hours in his cell, where he presently remains with no medical care.

Possibly due to Ayatollah Boroujerdi’s prominence, the regime has apparently chosen not to execute him, but instead to kill him silently in prison. There were two failed attempts on his life by poisoning inside prison in 2012. His mother, detained at the same time, was also poisoned and died as a result. Previously, in November 2011, a prisoner on death row was told by the authorities that if he succeeded in killing Boroujerdi he would be set free. The attempt failed when other prisoners intervened.

To protest the violent crimes of political Islam in the Islamic Republic, Boroujerdi announced via audio tape from prison that: “I am not inclined anymore to wear this frock; this frock has no credit or value in Iran or the international community” and removed his clerical robes.

Ayatollah Boroujerdi descends from a long line of renowned Shiite clergy; both his father and grandfather were staunch opponents of religious leaders in politics. As a result, both of his parents, along with his brother, were killed by the authorities under mysterious circumstances, as is the regime’s custom.

Despite his critical medical condition in prison, he remains defiant and his spirit remains unbreakable: he has stated hopes that his case will serve as a strong indictment of the Islamic Republic’s despotic rule and unspeakable human rights violations.

Ayatollah Boroujerdi has risked losing his life slowly under torture by writing letters from inside prison to then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and to the United Nations, speaking of the absolute lack of freedom inside Iran, the grotesque human rights violations and the imminent danger of political Islam. Further, he recently urged people of Iran to boycott the so-called elections on June 14, 2013. As a direct result of this statement his tortures recommenced despite his extremely fragile medical condition.

Ms. Roya Araghi, an advocate of Boroujerdi who herself was jailed and tortured for defending the him, and has since fled Iran, believes that without medical treatment and international intervention, Ayatollah Boroujerdi will most likely die soon under torture.

On June 29, 2013, members of Ayatollah Boroujerdi’s family went to Evin prison to visit him, and were shocked to see nature of his physical condition in the seventh year of his 11-year sentence. He has developed acute heart disease, which has led to the severe swelling of his feet and knees. He also suffers from ocular, pulmonary and respiratory disorders, but has been denied medical treatment by officials until he “repents “and “mends his ways”.

On July 8, 2013, Boroujerdi was interrogated for an extended period of time by government agents for his refusal to concede to the demands of the regime by signing a letter of “repentance.” He was informed that “the pressures and tortures will increase until he has been destroyed”. He has thus far refused to surrender.

World Watch Monitor (WWM), a service that provides news on worldwide persecuted church, on December 16, 2013 reported on a visit with Pakistani Christian Adnan Prince (or Adnan Masih) at his jail cell in Lahore.

Prince, aged 26, was arrested under the dreaded charge of blasphemy, Pakistan Penal Code’s Section 295, parts A, B and C – for allegedly outraging religious feelings, defiling the Koran and defaming Mohammed. This easily-manipulated charge, under which so many Pakistani Christians (not to mention many Muslims) have suffered, carries a sentence of either life imprisonment or execution.

WWM reported that the accusation came when Prince found a copy of a book written by Maulana Ameer Hamza, the leader of Jamat-ud-Dawa (JuD), a political arm of the jihadi organization Lashkar-e-Taiba, which claimed responsibility for the Mumbai bombings, while he was filling in for his brother at the Diamond Glass shop in Lahore on October 7, 2013.

Prince, who has a Master’s degree in English literature and training from United Pentecostal seminary, began to read Hamza’s book entitled I asked the Bible why the Qur’ans were set on fire (Urdu: Mein ney Bible sey poocha Qur’an kyun jaley), and take notes inside it.

Literature majors the world over will know the impulse to underline and take notes while reading a book. If, however, one is in Pakistan, and particularly if one is Christian, one should be very circumspect about writing in any book, let alone a book with the word Qur’an in the title.

Sure enough, a Muslim co-worker saw him, and, says WWM – using the phrase repeated o’er and o’er — “took offense.” The man, Abid Mehmood, reported Prince to the local police station for marking the book with “abusive words against the Prophet of Islam,” Prince recounted to WWM. Morning Star News, another Christian news service, reported that Mehmood also notified the JuD, who issued a fatwa against Prince.

The young Christian, who is married and the father of two little girls, told WWM that he had done nothing wrong. He explained, “I found the book quite erroneous, giving incorrect information about Christianity. So I wrote comments with Biblical references in several places, but no abusive language was used.”

Once the declaration of blasphemy has been made in Pakistan, no amount of factual evidence, rational thought, or logic ever seems to make a difference in how things play out. Prince fled for his life, but returned to Lahore on November 6, after police arrested his mother, brother, aunt, and uncle and warned they would not be released until he turned himself in.

The number of executions in Iran has significantly increased since President Hassan Rouhani took over the office from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in August 2013.

According to statistics provided by the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center — which lists those executed by name, date, location and crime — Iran has put to death 529 people this year, 300 alone since Rouhani assumed office in August.

The most common charge garnering the punishment of death was drug trafficking, followed by rape, murder and apostasy.

Reports of the statistics come in conjunction with the first visit in six years by the European Parliament’s delegation for relations with Iran scheduled for December 12-17. During the delegation’s last visit in 2007, Iran publicly executed a number of prisoners while the Europeans were in Tehran.

“Victims of sharia have suffered in silence for long enough. The International Civil Liberties Alliance will give them a voice . The legal, political and frequently barbaric doctrines of Sharia result in human rights abuses and flagrant disregard for civil liberties in violation of international norms and national legal codes. ”

For many years the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has been trying to extend the reach of sharia by demanding a global blasphemy law. At the same time terms such as “Islamophobia” have been put into circulation to blame the victims of sharia abuse rather than its perpetrators. Meanwhile, within OIC countries like Pakistan, sharia is being used as an instrument to terrorize religious minorities. VOSAN will take a two-pronged approach. The program will expose and confront human rights abuses caused by sharia within Muslim-majority OIC member countries, as well as abuses of civil liberties and human rights caused by accommodation to sharia doctrine in Western democracies.

VOSAN will focus public attention on cases of sharia-based doctrinal violations of human rights and norms of civil liberties, including: undermining freedom of expression, institutionalizing inequality before the law, encouraging cruel and unusual punishments, providing justification for gender-based inequality, promoting homophobia, persecuting apostates, and inciting the expansion of this systematic discrimination and violence to all countries, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

In 2014, Victims of Sharia Action Network will expose, confront and advocate against sharia abuses, always with a focus on specific cases to engage public interest and advocacy:

• Lobbying national governments to make combatting sharia human rights abuses a priority of their foreign policy.

• Supporting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by campaigning for the non-recognition of the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam on the grounds that it withholds basic human rights from both Muslims and non-Muslims alike.